Players:

Substitutes:

Scored goals:

Mark Byrne

Jaime Martinez

Mark Byrne

Report

Milestone game in being Mark Andress's last game for the club ever. And he had a marvellous game playing at centre back for the very first time! However we made heavy weather of this. UK touring side WAGS billed themselves as a veterans team, but were hardly that much older than us. But based on WAGS emails running up to the game, Keaty was completley convinced this would be 3 points in the bag. And really we shouldn't have let them score at all. WAGS however didn't come to lie down and they went into the break on level terms, after we let them slalom through our centre for two almost identical goals. Although the second was a gift from a clearance by Polishchuk. On the plus side Byrne was eager for the ball. And Appel, Andress, Janzer and Chalieux were working well individually if not collectively. Finlay, popping in and out of the game on the right, got the second of our goals, with a lethal shot at a narrow angle. In the second, we had plenty of chances. Perhaps a mistake not to have at least one sub in such hot conditions. Byrne moved himself to the front and Perazich moved to midfield. The result was the ball went directly to the forwards, bypassing midfield for most of the second half. Anyway it worked in a sense that we won the game, Byrne sniffing our 3 more goals from almost identical positions. 2 from the left, shooting strongly past the goalie from inside the box, and his last a through ball leaving him half the field to run on goal and slip past the keeper. Martinez got one in between. The game wasn't without controversy. They scored a goal from a dubious decision - a goal line scramble with two WAGS all but manhandling Appel off the ball. And finally a pre-arranged yellow card for Andress - the ref was well briefed before the game - for old times' sake. Perfectly timed, the ref was supposed to give it for a foul that Appel had just committed. The innocent Andress was called over, and unfortunately the ref booked him "backchat", and as Andress said later, "I was too scared to say anything more in case I got a red." Andress is off to Mexico for a possible two year job stint and he will be missed on the field of play. He could pull of the occasional copy-book clean tackle, had a habit of making goal-line clearances, but also scored speculative lobs, and gave away penalties. It was always reassuring to have him on the pitch knowing that he wanted to win more than almost anyone else. This led him to stormy encounters with a ref or opposing player (who can forget the game vs Italians in 2003), but you always knew he was going to put his body in where it hurts.